The Darker Side

  It occurs to me that I’ve been helped by a monster once again, however indirectly. The Preacher had preached about the value of truth. I’d done what he said and sure enough, I was better for it.

  I am not grateful.

  I ARRIVE TO FIND JAMES already there, along with Jezebel.

  “Just who I wanted to see,” I say. “I think I know how he’s been getting his information.”

  I explain.

  “It makes sense,” James agrees. “It fits with the religious paradigm. He likes technology. Infiltrating support groups and hoping to strike up a conversation with the right victim is too hit and miss; bugging the confessionals would be precision targeting.”

  “If I’m right, the common denominator to all victims will be that they were practicing Catholics. We need to figure out a way to verify that without giving away the reason we want to know.”

  “What do we want to know?” Callie enters with her coffee in one hand, donuts in the other. Alan follows behind her.

  I lay out my hypothesis again.

  “Me oh my,” she says when I finish. “That’s going to make some waves.”

  “I want to avoid that if we can.”

  James frowns. “There’s an ethical question here. We have some idea of how he chooses his victims. Perhaps we should go public with this, to warn anyone who’s come clean on something major in confession.”

  It’s an interesting point, and one I hadn’t considered.

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” I say. “For now, we need to find out if the victims were Catholic. If they are, then we can strategize from there.”

  “We could do it as a questionnaire,” Jezebel muses. “Call the families and ask them a series of general questions, tell them we’re just looking for any and all information that might help. One of the questions could address religion. It won’t raise any flags that way.”

  “Great idea,” I say. “Draft it with James right now.”

  “Callie, I need you to go over to the Redeemer. Father Yates is expecting us. We need to sweep the confessional for bugs.”

  “That’s not really my forté. Forensics, not electronics, remember?”

  “Call Tommy. He’s an expert in the area. He can tell you what you need.”

  She raises an eyebrow. “Are you two speaking again?”

  “You could say that.”

  “I thought you had that self-satisfied ‘I’ve just been laid’ aura about you,” she says.

  “It’s a lot more interesting than that, but I’ll tell you later, not now.”

  She grabs her coffee and her purse, points a finger at me. “Don’t think I’ll forget.”

  “Last of my worries. Oh, and, Callie?” She stops and turns. “Call me right away with what you find.”

  Because I’d like to be sure my own confession isn’t sitting on a tape somewhere, I don’t say out loud.

  I think it’s unlikely; the smart money is on them removing the bugs once they finish up, so as to avoid detection, but better safe than stupid, Mom always said.

  She tips me a two-finger salute.

  “What about me?” Alan asks.

  The office door flies open before I can answer. AD Jones walks in. His face is pale.

  “We’re too late.”

  “VALERIE CAVANAUGH, AGE TEN. FOUND dead in her bedroom this morning. Stuck in the side like the others.”

  We’re in the AD’s office. Alan is seated. I am pacing, back and forth. I want to scream or shoot something; I’m sick with guilt.

  “Do we know if she’s Catholic?”

  AD Jones frowns. “What does that have to do with it?”

  I haven’t had time to bring him up to speed on my theory. I do so now.

  “It would explain everything,” he agrees. “How he gets his information, the religious tie-in. It all fits.”

  “I want to keep it under wraps, for now.” I explain about the questionnaire.

  “Good. Get them going on that and then I want you and Alan to head over to the Cavanaugh home.”

  “Could be a copycat,” Alan says. “Using it for cover.”

  “The parents?” I ask.

  He shrugs. “Anything’s possible.”

  I have to allow that he could be right. One of the parents, or both, could have seen the news coverage about the Preacher and killed little Valerie in the same way, hoping to blame it on our serial killer. Most child victims are murdered by a parent.

  But I don’t think so. Not this time.

  “Be discreet with that theory,” AD Jones orders. “As I understand, they had to sedate the mom.”

  “THE FORMAT IS SIMPLE,” JEZEBEL says as I read the questionnaire. “We’ll keep two people on the tip line. We’ve confirmed the identities of all the victims anyway. James and I will supervise the other four and we’ll start calling the families. It will take us into the late afternoon, but we’ll get it done.”

  “This is good,” I say.

  The questions are designed to fit with the cover story of collecting “background” information on the victims. They are broad and innocuous. “Did she ever attend college?” “Did she have any children?” “What social groups was she a part of?” And, buried among them all, the question we really want answered: “What, if any, religion did she practice?”

  “The media won’t alert on this,” Jezebel says, “and the families will be eager, for the most part, to answer.”

  “Do it.”

  “THERE ARE NO BUGS IN this church, hallelujah,” Callie tells me on the phone. “However, I did find a spot inside the confessional that looks to have been wood-puttied recently.”

  “Prints?” I ask, hoping without really expecting.

  “Sorry, no. And the wood putty, while intriguing, isn’t decisive. There’s no way for me to confirm how long it’s been there. Could be months, could be years.”

  “Not days?” I ask, thinking again of my own confession.

  “No, older than that.”

  “Big coincidence that it’s there at all,” I say.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “I want you to meet us at a crime scene.” I explain.

  She’s silent.

  “He did it? A child?”

  “Looks that way.”

  “Give me the address.”

  32

  THE CAVANAUGHS LIVE IN ONE OF THE SUBURBS OF BURBANK, in a two-story home built in the early eighties that has since been updated. It’s on one of those small residential streets that are unique to Los Angeles; quiet, secluded, tree lined, but just three blocks away it’s all concrete and steel and rush, rush, rush.

  “Media vultures are already circling,” Alan observes.

  “Young, white, middle-class, female, and dead,” I say. “That’s a lead story anywhere in the USA.”

  We are let in past the cordons put up to keep the media at bay. Neighbors stand outside on their lawns, horrified at the idea that a monster came so close, thankful he didn’t choose their child, and unable to look away.

  “Three black and whites,” Alan points out. “Probably crowd control. Two unmarkeds. One’s a town car, probably brass come out because of the media. The other will be the detectives in charge.” He shakes his head. “Wouldn’t want to be them right now.”

  I snort. “Them? What about us?”

  “It’s different when you’re a cop. We’re the FBI. We can do our thing here and walk away. These detectives have to stay right here in the limelight.”

  “I never looked at it like that.”

  “How do you want to do this?”

  I examine the scene. Most of the media is involved in setup shots, filming the home, the surrounds, the police presence. Helicopters circle above. News reporters clutch their microphones and practice snappy summations of what they know so far. It’s not them I’m worried about right now. I continue scanning and find what I was afraid of.

  “Shoot,” I mutter. “We have some smart ones.”

  I’m refer
ring to what I consider the “real newspeople,” the ones who spend more time looking than talking, noses to the air, sniffing for the slightest scent of the real story. The one I spotted is a woman. She’s a blonde, in her mid-thirties, well dressed in a tailored jacket and matching dark slacks. She’s not watching the house, but is looking right at our car. I can see her talking to her cameraman, and pointing toward us. She can’t have seen who we are through the tinted windows, but somehow she knows anyway.

  “Can’t stay away from the cameras on this one forever,” Alan says.

  “I guess not.” I sigh. “Let’s just find whoever’s in charge, see what we need to see, and get out of here.”

  We exit the car and head up the walk. I try and keep my face turned away from the cameras, but give up when I remember they’ll just catch me coming out. We reach the door and are stopped by a cop in uniform.

  Older, I think, more experienced. They want someone who can think on his feet standing post here.

  “What’s up, Alan?” the cop asks, unsmiling.

  He’s a big guy. Not as big as Alan, but broad. He has white hair and a rough, heavy face. I’d peg him as a meathead if not for the eyes. They’re sharp, intelligent, and unfriendly.

  “Need to see whoever’s running the show, Ron,” Alan replies.

  The cop sneers a little. “What does the FBI want with this scene? Isn’t this a little beneath you now?”

  Alan smiles. It’s as unfriendly as Ron’s eyes. “Still an asshole, I see. And still blaming me for getting you busted back to uniform.”

  The sneer threatens to become a snarl. I decide it’s time for me to step in.

  “Hey—Ron, is it? You know who I am?”

  He tears his eyes away from Alan with some reluctance. He examines my face, nods.

  “I know you.”

  “Then you know there’s only one reason I’m here. That dead little girl. Can you help me out, and maybe pick this up with Alan at a later date?”

  His eyes flick back and forth between us. He gives off a grumbling sigh. “Hang on.” He unholsters his radio and presses the transmit button. “Detective Alvarez?”

  A moment’s pause and a reply comes back. “Go.”

  “I got two feebs out here. Alan Washington and Smoky Barrett. They’re asking for access.”

  A longer pause this time. “Let ’em in.”

  “Roger that.”

  Ron reholsters his radio and opens the door to the home without another word. Those hostile eyes follow Alan all the way in.

  “What was that about?” I ask once we’re inside the foyer.

  “Short version? Ron Briscoe was a homicide detective. Pretty good one. He ran a case where a guy was strangling little girls. He knew who the guy was, but couldn’t get the evidence he needed. So he cut corners. Planted evidence. I found out about it and spoke up. The guy walked and Briscoe got busted back to uniform.”

  “What happened to the bad guy?”

  “The father of one of the victims blew the perp’s brains out. Father’s in prison now.”

  I stare at my friend, fascinated and aghast at this revelation. He’d said it all so matter-of-factly, but I know it has to be a burden for him.

  “Here comes a suit,” Alan murmurs to me. “Police Commissioner Daniels himself.”

  Fred Daniels has been the LAPD commissioner for over ten years now. He’s in his late fifties, but remains more vital than men younger than him. He’s tall and thin, with a grizzled, military haircut and the hard face of a drill sergeant. He’s reputed to walk the line between fair and ruthless, with ruthless winning more often than not. He approaches us and puts out a hand to shake mine.

  “Agent Barrett,” he says.

  “Commissioner.”

  He shakes Alan’s hand as well.

  “You used to be LAPD, Agent Washington, is that right?”

  “Ten years in homicide, Commissioner.”

  “Nice to know some of the people at the FBI come from the streets. No offense, Agent Barrett.”

  “None taken.”

  “You’re here because you think this is connected with the Preacher?”

  Straight to business.

  “We’re examining the possibility,” I reply.

  “Crime scene is upstairs,” he says, pointing to the staircase. “Alvarez is a good detective. Don’t step on his toes.” He’d been holding his police cap under his arm. He pulls it out and fits it onto his head. “I’m going to go feed all the piranhas with cameras.”

  He heads out the door, almost running into Callie as he leaves.

  “Wooo, the commissioner,” she breathes, batting her eyes in faux-groupie fashion. “I feel special to be here already.”

  “Do you know Alvarez?” I ask Alan.

  “Only his name.”

  I sigh. “There’s no use in putting this off. Let’s go find him and see the scene.”

  RAYMOND ALVAREZ IS A SHORT man, no more than five-five. He’s handsome enough, and I see a wedding band through the latex glove covering his left hand. He’s full of energy and he talks with his hands, pointing and gesturing.

  “Dad’s with Mom at the hospital. She freaked out. Started destroying the kitchen. Like, throwing chairs through the windows, smashing dishes. She cut up her hands pretty bad, bleeding all over the place, they had to forcibly sedate her.”

  “You see it?”

  “Her? Yeah. Seemed real.”

  Sometimes the guilty feign hysteria to throw us off. It’s difficult to do well. Real grief, the kind that comes from finding out that a loved one has been killed, is spontaneous and anything but rote. Some people scream, some wail, some go wooden, some faint dead away.

  “Can we see Valerie?” I ask.

  “This way,” he says.

  He doesn’t ask why. There simply is no substitute for seeing the corpse at the scene of the crime. He leads us down the hall, past a master bedroom with beige carpet and white walls. The carpet continues everywhere, as do the walls; safe, unimaginative California at its best. We pass photos hung on the walls, every frame black, each one the same style. The Cavanaughs are a handsome couple, he with the short blond hair, she with the long blonde hair, both with the whitest teeth I’ve ever seen. They smile and show all those teeth in every photo. Beautiful people. A girl I assume to be Valerie appears in a number of them, also blonde and smiling with the white teeth passed down to her by her parents.

  I catch my own cynicism and try to rein it in. There’s nothing in any of these photos or those smiles that says their happiness was un-genuine or that the people themselves are shallow.

  They’re not smiling now, I think. It occurs to me that Alexa was ten when she died, that Bonnie was ten when she came into my life.

  A magic number.

  “Here we go. Glove up and put on the paper booties,” Alvarez says, pointing to the boxes placed outside the room.

  We each comply, and I smell that smell now, the singular mix of latex and blood.

  We enter the room. It’s pink everywhere, little princess to the max. The walls are pink, the bed is a canopy with frilly pink bedsheets and comforter. Various stuffed animals decorate both bed and floor. There’s a small desk—pink—with a computer set up on it. The monitor, I note, is on.

  Valerie is what commands our attention, the attention of everyone in this room. She is lying on her back, arms folded across her chest. Her eyes are open wide. Her blonde hair fans out around her head. Blood has run from the hole in her side to soak the pink bedding and the beige carpet with a bright contrast of burgundy. Her mouth is closed, the white teeth not in evidence here.

  “She’s naked,” Alan observes.

  “The posing is still not sexual,” I point out. “It’s more like he’s sending them out as they came in.”

  “Yeah.”

  I turn to Alvarez. “Who found her?”

  “The dad. She didn’t come downstairs for breakfast, he came up to check on her, found her this way.”

  “The father
didn’t touch her,” Callie says. “Strange.”

  She refers to the fact that Valerie remains posed as she died, something we can tell by the pattern of blood flow from her side.

  “I asked him about that,” Alvarez responds. “He said he could tell she was dead. The way her eyes are open, and how white she is.”

  “I can see it,” I admit.

  There’s no spark of life evident in Valerie. She has the appearance of a cold, soft mannequin.

  “Evidence of a point of entry?” Alan asks.

  “Two. There’s a door that leads from the backyard into the garage, and there’s a door that leads from the garage into the house. Both show evidence of skilled tampering. If he did it, he opened the gate that leads into the backyard, forced door number one, then door number two and gained access.”

  “No alarm system?” I ask.

  “No. And no dog. Bad luck.”

  “Still, pretty bold,” I say. “Coming in here at night, killing her while the parents were sleeping.”

  “That fit with your guy?” Alvarez asks.

  “He’s a risk-taker and he warned us he was going to kill a child.”

  He indicates the bed and Valerie.

  “What about this? Does it seem authentic?”

  “I only have two other scenes to compare it to. It presents the same, except for the age of the victim, which is troubling. We held something back regarding his MO.” I tell him about the cross the Preacher inserts into the wounds postmortem. “If it’s not there, this is a copycat.”

  “In which case we’ll have to take a hard look at the parents.” Alvarez sighs. “Great. I’m not sure which is better.”

  “Can we get this checked out now, honey-love?” Callie asks. “The coroner on-site?”

  “He’s out front getting the body wagon ready. I’ll call him in.”

  “HOW FAR IN WAS THE cross placed in the other victims?”